Ninth Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment in Favor of Client

Attorneys Diane Polscer and Brian Hickman successfully represented primary insurer Discover Property & Casualty Insurance Company (“Discover”) before the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Discover and the insured.

This lawsuit pitted the insured and its primary insurer against excess insurer National Union. The dispute concerned the number of “occurrences” arising from multiple lawsuits alleging multiple instances of abuse by the same employees against multiple children in a day care center. Both the insured and Discover sought to establish that the lawsuits constituted only one “occurrence” and that, therefore, the National Union policy was obliged to defend all remaining lawsuits following a settlement of the first lawsuit which exhausted the one “occurrence” limit in the Discover policy. The insured filed for summary judgment; Discover joined and supported the motion. Summary judgment was granted based on the related nature of the alleged incidents of abuse and the unique policy language at issue.